Day 23 (2 August) A quiet Shabbat in Beijing + BONUS

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The sabbath morning service at Chabad in the 'upper east side' of Beijing started at 11am which is late by any standards. However, the service was over before 12:30. Now for those familiar with Shabbat shacharit services you will know that you can expect at least 2 hours if not 2.5 to 3 hours - so you can see it was quite speedy.

Fortunately our suite in the Traders Upper East hotel allowed us into the executive lounge to get morning coffee prior to going out. So we were quite set for the late start.

Lunch with Chabad was pleasant albeit ordinary and uneventful, and by 3pm we were back in our hotel room.

And that is where we stayed until the end of Shabbat. The afternoon was restful and peaceful, just reading and relaxing.

Then we went into the executive lounge for tea and whatever we could forage. An early evening suited us fine since we had more serious touring again planned for the next 2 days.

Besides these views inside and outside (NOTE: scroll down if necessary) of our hotel, in this blog post we also picture our brilliant Beijing tour GUIDE Richard and very smooth DRIVER Cheng whom we booked through Tours By Locals. This BONUS insertion simply reflects the abundance of sightseeing photographs for all our days touring around the Beijing area, so we chose here to recognise their fine and friendly services. So no, we did not actually see them on this Saturday.

As another BONUS our 2 short VIDEOs have finally been posted for "Day 8 (July 18) the Hole in the Rock" which show the DOLPHINS and the HOLE during our Bay of Islands cruise. See our updated posting at

www.travelblog.org/fred.php?id=850366

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